1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a beacon device for providing a location-based service, and more particularly, to a beacon device for a seamless service and a control method thereof, which enables nearby terminal devices to always recognize the beacon device by seamlessly broadcasting a beacon signal even while a connection is established with a specific terminal device.
2. Description of Related Art
This section is intended to merely provide background for embodiments of the present invention and is not considered to be the prior art in the claims.
With the development of mobile networks and the advance in terminal specifications, mobile communication terminals have become the necessity for modern people and have evolved into total entertainment devices beyond typical simple communication devices or information providing devices.
Further, technologies for performing a short-distance wireless communication between devices that are located within a short distance are being rapidly developed, one of which is Bluetooth communication.
Such Bluetooth communication has evolved into Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology, which is released recently. BLE is a protocol stack that has lower power consumption than a standard Bluetooth wireless connection and as such, supports simple and quick connection, which is used in various fields such as a machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, a geo-fence, mobile payment, and a location-based service system (for example, an indoor positioning system (IPS)). The Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology has lower power consumption than a standard Bluetooth wireless connection and therefore is mainly used for mobile payment in recent years.
In particular, a location-based service system is a technology for recognizing persons and objects in a building using optics, wireless communication, magnetic field, and voice technology, instead of GPS satellites. As portable smart devices, such as a smartphone or tablet PC, are widely used and the demand for accurate indoor positioning increases, research is being conducted on the location-based service system.
Basically, the location-based service system is configured to calculate the location or provide the location-based service by installing beacon devices in many indoor places and enabling a user's terminal device to communicate with an adjacent beacon device using the short-distance communication technology.
In communication between the beacon device and the terminal device, the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology may be used.
On the basis of the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology, the beacon device broadcasts a predetermined beacon signal while operating in a peripheral mode that is defined in the BLE technology and transmits predetermined information when a terminal device that operates in a central mode defined in the BLE technology receives the beacon signal to recognize and access the beacon device.
However, when operating in the peripheral mode, the existing beacon device cannot broadcast the beacon signal while connected with a specific terminal device and thereby other neighboring terminal devices cannot recognize the beacon device.